


A Chaos of the Mind and Body

by Winoniel



Category: Once and Future King Series - T. H. White
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:35:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5470031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winoniel/pseuds/Winoniel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"A chaos of the mind and body—a time for weeping at sunsets and at the glamour of moonlight—a confusion and profusion of beliefs and hopes, in God, in Truth, in Love, and in Eternity—an ability to be transported by the beauty of physical objects—a heart to ache or swell—a joy so joyful and a sorrow so sorrowful that oceans could lie between them."  </p><p>Arthur and Lancelot are brothers-in-arms, dedicated to righting the wrongs of medieval British 'civilization.'  Who else could really understand them but each other?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Chaos of the Mind and Body

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abbichicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abbichicken/gifts).



> To abbichicken: I tried to give you "the fires! the meat! the mead!" Hope you enjoy!  
> Also, I have conflated several events in the novel so that they take place in Lancelot’s teen and early adult years.  
> My thanks to the Yuletide mods and to my betas Sherri and Douglas.

“Ho! That was a mighty swipe!” Arthur chortled. “I think young Rewald looks quite promising, don’t you?” Arthur and Lancelot were observing the practice sparring in the courtyard, commenting on the prowess of several of the younger men hoping to be made knights at the next Pentecost feast. 

“Yes, Arthur, but it was wildly conducted. There was little preparation, and no completion of the motion. The fact that there was any contact at all should really be ascribed to luck or poor positioning on Scarden’s part.”

“Ah, Lance, you are too hard on the boy. I take it that you will not volunteer to knight him?”

“Arthur, I do not feel it is appropriate. I—” began Lancelot, but at that moment a messenger arrived.

Both men stiffened at the appearance of the small, bedraggled boy, for it was apparent from his livery that he was a page in the queen’s household. There were several arrow-slits in his jupon, one under the right armpit, leaking a small amount of blood. He held his hand over the wound and gave a surprisingly succinct, though breathless, report. 

It was the first of May and the queen had gone A-Maying. As per tradition, she had left her bodyguard behind and taken only her housemen, dressed in green as were the rest of the party, and carrying only hand weapons. After having collected armfuls of dew-covered blossoms, they were riding home when they had been set upon. Sir Meliagrance, a low-ranking, rather forgettable knight, had known that they would be unarmed and had brought a large number of men to ambush them.

 _Lancelot, halfway through the story, was already shouting for his armor. By the time it was told Arthur was kneeling at his feet, strapping on the greaves._ (1)

As Lancelot shouted he thought, _for him, all for him_. Lancelot would rescue the queen, slaughtering any number of men in the process. He would definitely kill that cur Meliagrance for his presumption and arrogance—excruciatingly slowly if he had the time. However, his ardor and determination was not due to any duty he felt for Guenever, though Lancelot was the greatest knight of the Round Table, and by right, her champion. He would rescue, and slay, and enact revenge not for her, but for his beloved Lord and King. 

Lancelot would do anything for the king kneeling before him. Though Arthur’s face was suffused with fury and his eyes with a growing rage, his hands were matter of fact and almost gentle as he tightened the straps around Lancelot’s shins. At that, Lancelot’s face also filled with color, though it had more to do with Arthur’s position before him than with Guenever’s circumstances.

“For the love you bear me, bring her back to me, Lance.”

“I promise, my King, by my vow and the love I bear you, it will be done.”

~*~*~*~*~*~  
Lancelot slashed his sword, catching his opponent in the throat. Following through with his leftward motion, he sliced another man deftly in the juncture between the armor over his chest and his chain mail sleeve. Lancelot threw his weight behind his thrust, plunging the point into the soft tissue and pulled up slightly as he withdrew his sword, causing the man to shriek as blood spurted from his armpit and he fell to his knees.

Forgetting the two men almost immediately, Lancelot glanced up at the castle. There were at least twenty men-at-arms between him and his goal, but they were ill fitted to the task of defending the castle against someone of Lancelot’s caliber. The way they shuffled their feet and shifted their weapons more awkwardly than threateningly showed that they were as well aware of the fact as he was. The image of Arthur on his knees popped into his head again, spurring Lancelot to a breathtaking bout of action, his movements a blur as he mowed down the remaining combatants like grass before the harvest scythe.

Meliagrance’s men were so poorly trained that they never really pressed Lancelot. He found himself falling into his youthful practice forms, particularly a rather unorthodox pattern that had worked well for him. He cut, then uppercut, then blocked or dodged if necessary—though it rarely was—and finally thrust, before starting his pattern again, his body lithe and elusive as an eel. Now, as it had been back in the Armory at Castle Benwick, his body moved automatically, with dreadful efficiency. However, his thoughts rested again on Arthur.

His youth, after that fateful moment when he’d met, talked with, and fallen in love with the new King, had been filled with devotion and dedication, both to the man and his ideals. Instead of playing games and mooning after maidens, Lancelot had trained and hardened and sculpted his body to be the perfect physical manifestation of knighthood. He had eschewed the close family evenings to focus on his thoughts about obliterating the governance of Fort Mayne. He had given every minute of every day, every thought that entered his head, and every feeling that sparked in his soul, to Arthur.

Lancelot drew his attention back to the fact that he’d reached the steps of the castle, just as he remembered the feeling he’d had when he learned that Arthur had married, established his Round Table, and knighted a number of young men. He tried to stop his thoughts before the crushing feeling of betrayal that nearly drowned him because the king had seemingly forgotten him. He almost succeeded. Lancelot was jealous of those knights and jealous of Guenever, and heartily ashamed of his jealousy. His jealousy was only assuaged by her kindness.

 _King Arthur had asked his wife to be kind to the young man. She was fond of her husband, and she realized that she had come between him and his friend. She was not such a fool as to try to atone to Lancelot for this, but she had taken a fancy for him as himself. She liked his broken face, however hideous it was, and Arthur had asked her to be kind._ (2) __  
  
Heart pounding, a suspicious burning welling behind his eyes, Lancelot shouted, “Meliagrance, you coward, come forth that I might battle and slay you for your treason!”

~*~*~*~*~*~  
Soft and perfumed and delicate like a spring lily, she was the Arthur’s Queen. She sat lightly before Lancelot on his heavily muscled charge as they left behind the shambles of the lopsided battle. He could feel her heat in the pocket formed between her back and his chest and belly, even though he was still sheathed in his armor. She smiled and shouted back delighted words that were taken by the wind before they reached his ears. She would glance back at him seriously, her eyes jerking forward quickly if she saw he was also looking at her, her hand fluttering in the air. He was unused to women, having spent all of his youth and early adulthood on his quest towards perfection while the other boys flirted with and annoyed the maidens. However, he’d seen this behavior before. Whenever he was around King Arthur Lancelot had seen that behavior in himself. Guenever, Arthur’s wife, was in love with her champion, the Ill-Made Knight.  
~*~*~*~*~*~ 

“My champion!” Guenever said warmly when Lancelot entered the great hall. “Come, sir, and sit by me. I was just telling of some of your adventures on your quest, making a hash of it, I know.” In the aftermath of her rescue, Guenever doted even more on Lancelot. 

“My Queen.” Lancelot said bowing over the hand she’d presented. In the interest of protecting her reputation, nothing had been said about her kidnapping, just letting the whole incident drop since there were few left at the castle who could tell the tale, and they were in no position to do so without loss of face. He sat.

“Here, Lance,” Arthur said, lifting his glass in silent acknowledgement of that which would not be said. “A toast to one of the noblest, chivalric knights in all of Gramarye! To the Queen’s champion, and my dearest friend.”

Lancelot’s heart twisted. Arthur’s ‘dearest friend.’ How he wished—well, no matter. Lancelot could be, would be, a good friend. He could, would, do that for the man Lancelot had worshipped since he had been a boy.

“My dear Sir Lancelot,” Guenever said, putting one of the choicest bits of food on his plate. “Have some of this pork. It is quite fragrant with spices.”

Throughout the evening, she bent her head close to his, sometimes nudging him with her elbow at a jest, at other times, laying a soft hand on his knee as she pointed out one or another of the knights as they told their stories or an example of the new tapestries.

Over the course of the next few weeks, Lancelot grew more and more uncomfortable. He was never more relieved than when Lucius declared war on the English. 

The Roman dictator had gathered allies from Germany, Africa, Greece, Turkey, and Spain, among others. When Arthur crossed the Channel to meet the enemy in Gaul, Lancelot accompanied him. They fought, ate, and slept side by side. They tied up each other’s wounds, sang bawdy, then sad, nostalgic songs together, and saved each other’s lives on a number of occasions.

By the time of their return, Lancelot was certain: he not only loved his king, he was most certainly in love with him as well. And he was just as certain that Arthur loved him, not just as a ‘dear friend,’ not just as his lady’s champion, not just as a fellow soldier, but also as a man.

 _WHEN the two friends arrived in England from the Roman war, the fleet landed at Sandwich. It was a grey September day, with the blue and copper butterflies flitting in the after-grass, the partridges calling like crickets, the blackberries colouring, and the hazel nuts still nursing their tasteless little kernels in cradles of cotton wool. Queen Guenever was on the beach to meet them, and the first thing Lancelot knew after she had kissed the King, was that she was able to come between them after all. He made a movement as if his entrails were tying themselves in knots, saluted the Queen, went off to bed in the nearest inn at once, and lay awake all night. In the morning, he asked leave of absence from the court._ (3)

“But you have only just arrived,” said Arthur. “Why do you want to leave so soon?” 

“I need to leave.” 

“Need to leave?” asked the King. “What do you mean, you need to leave?”

Lancelot clenched his fist until the knuckles stood out, and bit out, “I need to go on a quest. I need to—” he whispered quietly, “I need to find what is out there for me.”

“But, Lance——”

“Please, Arthur, as you love me, let me go!”

“Of course, my dear,” Arthur said. 

Lancelot had to turn his head to keep himself from changing his mind. He reminded himself that Arthur was the King of England, was married to his Queen, and had all of the responsibilities and obligations thereto. Lancelot was doing them both a service by removing himself before he could embarrass them both.

“Come back soon,” said the King, turning quietly longing eyes on the knight.  
~*~*~*~*~*~  
It was a bittersweet moment that rested at the first page of the famous quests. He did not embark upon them to find renown. They were just a means of escaping his desperate love for his King. They were an attempt to save his integrity, to not interfere in the marriage of two people dear to him, and to find an outlet for his overwhelming physical desire for Arthur. In spite of his original purpose, the quests served the dual function of establishing Lancelot as one of the greatest of knights and of demonstrating to the knight how empty such accolades were when he was alone, a solitary man on a solitary path. 

However, he saw no other course before him. He returned for one night at Pentecost, sending his many prisoners and rescues before him to kneel at the King’s feet. He could see the warmth in Arthur’s eyes as the many tales of Lancelot’s exploits were recounted, the concern at some of the dangerous adventures from which the knight barely escaped, and the joyous laughter at some of the comical episodes of the quests. When the King glanced over, his smile like bright sunshine warming the room, Lancelot felt an echoing warmth curling up from his groin. He smiled back shyly.

The knight had left the castle for his next ‘quest’ long before the scullery maids had awakened to stir the banked coals of the cooking fires. By dawn, Lancelot was miles away from Camelot.  
~*~*~*~*~*~  
It was two and a half years later when Lancelot returned. He had gone mad, returned to sanity, and been declared dead. As he rode into the barbican of the city on a clear, cold December morning, he was emaciated and haggard, though he was painstakingly clean and dressed in finely woven, though simple clothing. 

He had barely reached the castle walls when he heard a familiar voice shouting his name, the “Lance!” echoing around the courtyard. A faraway figure was at one of the towers, waving madly. Lancelot turned his face up, letting the meager rays of the sun warm him as he searched for Arthur. It was only a few minutes later that the King dashed out of the castle, almost frightening Lancelot’s horse into rearing. The gaunt man slipped quickly off horseback and kneeled in the snow.

“My King, your errant knight has returned.”

“Lance!” Arthur’s voice was shocked. “Get up off of the ground this instant!” He pulled Lancelot up into his arms immediately, embracing his friend tightly. 

“I’ve missed you so! I’ve heard the tales of your adventures from our other returning knights. You’ve developed quite the formidable reputation. However, tales of you are not the same as having you at court.” He had been pulling his knight toward the castle during his speech, alternately dragging and stopping to gaze wide-eyed at Lancelot. Finally, they arrived at the private royal chambers, and Arthur called for a page to stoke the fire and to bring food.

Lancelot, who hadn’t realized he was shivering, dropped in front of the hearth, luxuriating in the thick blanketing carpet on the floor. Arthur kneeled behind him, massaging his stiff, aching shoulders. He hoped it was the warmth of the fire that was causing his face to flush, but he couldn’t blame the fire for the warmth building in his belly, washing over his thighs and groin, causing parts that he’d thought dead to awaken and swell.

“Thank you,” Arthur said as the boy placed a tray with warmed spiced wine, wheat cakes, honey and butter, and cold meats on the table beside them.

“Here, Lance, let’s get you into some warm, dry clothes,” Arthur continued as he handed Lancelot a thick robe. 

They lay before the fire, eating and drinking, growing comfortable and drowsy, much as they had been on campaign. Arthur knew more of the details of Lancelot’s undertakings than he himself remembered, so he basically just shared his reactions to the events. He told of his blunted, muddled memories of being a wild man and shackled for months on end, of being nursed back to sanity and health by the Princess Elaine. He told of his growing horror when she said that she wanted him to stay with her. He told of his frustration that she couldn’t seem to understand that he could never trust a woman who tricked him twice into her bed. He told of his growing awareness that if he didn’t leave as soon as he was able to move, he would allow his guilt and nobility and pity for the poor girl to keep him at Castle Bliant. 

Feeling the encouraging hand rubbing small circles on the small of his back, Lancelot haltingly revealed his determination to get back to Arthur, and his growing realization that regardless of the circumstances, he felt that his true place was at the side of his king.

“I am so pleased that you feel that way, Lance,” Arthur said. “I’ve missed you so. I’ve missed your dedication to making me discuss and really think about my policies before trying to put them in place. I’ve missed your devotion and care for me, as a man as opposed to your king. I’ve missed y-your love and devotion.”

Lancelot froze. Arthur couldn’t possibly be admitting—the younger man turned and gazed into those world-weary, yet good, noble and trusting eyes. The hand which had been on his back was now on his hip, but it continued to circle, though a bit slower and more gently.’

“Arthur—” Lancelot’s words were arrested by lips grazing against his own, and without thinking, he pressed back firmly, moving slightly so that his hands curled into Arthur’s hair, caressing and combing.

The men wrestled as their mouths opened, tongues thrusting, demanding and needy. Arthur gained the moment by pressing his knee against Lancelot’s swelling member, and when the younger man groaned, sliding on top while holding his knight’s wrists against the floor beside his head. They stared at each other. 

Lancelot spoke first. “Arthur, please, I’ve wanted you for so long. I couldn’t stand to be near you, my desire was so fierce. Let me love you, let me show how much I worship you.”

“I think not, Lance dear.” Arthur’s voice was so grave that Lancelot could almost hear the thick, wet sound of his heart falling into his belly. A second later, the cold sodden feeling there almost caused him to be violently ill. 

Arthur must have realized this for his eyes widened for a moment, “No, no, my dear! What I mean is that I, too, have waited a long time for this. I would like to show you how much I am grateful for your loyalty and affection. You have helped me to be a better King and a better man. Most importantly, you make my body, you make _me_ feel alive.”

He gently slid Lancelot’s hands further up and to the sides, subtly asserting his superior posture in their current tableau. His words, however, were gentle and almost pleading. “Will you let _me_ love _you_? Will you let me try to make you feel really adored?”

Lancelot’s eyes rolled back in his head, his muscles slackened at the seductive voice promising everything he’d ever wanted, and he nodded, his eyes closed. 

Arthur chuckled, then said, “Good. Keep your hands exactly where they are now, dearest. Do not move them, no matter what I do you are to stay exactly like this.”

Lancelot stayed that way, almost boneless in his willing submission to the other man. He felt his thighs and belly kissed and nibbled. He felt a warm mouth on his nipples and though he groaned deep in his chest, he did not move. His body bucked when that mouth took his rigid column almost all the way to the throat. His hands _did_ lift an inch or two when he felt his peak approaching, but they fell back down and his whole body stiffened as he reached his peak and his blood pounded and his member jerked as he poured his seed into that delightfully clever mouth.

He shook his groggy head, feeling the need to help Arthur to completion as well, only to see him wipe himself with the edge of his robe. They looked at each other with silly grins, and without words, curled into a warm embrace.

“We must be discreet, my dear, but would you be agreeable to our continuing to love each other in the flesh as we have for years in our hearts?” Arthur asked, his drowsy words sliding into Lancelot’s ear, causing him to shiver slightly.

“Oh, yes, Arthur,” Lancelot said, smiling slightly. “I have to take my turn at loving _you_.”

 _He felt a chaos of the mind and body—a time for weeping at sunsets and at the glamour of moonlight—a confusion and profusion of beliefs and hopes, in God, in Truth, in Love, and in Eternity—an ability to be transported by the beauty of physical objects—a heart to ache or swell—a joy so joyful and a sorrow so sorrowful that oceans could lie between them._ (4)

Notes:  
(1) T. H. White, _The Once and Future King_ (New York: Ace Books, 2011): 502.  
(2) White, _Once and Future King_ , 329.  
(3) White, _Once and Future King_ , 336  
(4) White, _Once and Future King_ , 376


End file.
